I had an interesting thought yesterday. What if I could apply PPC marketing techniques to my day job? Special thanks to Nickycakes for planting the idea in my head.

Let me explain. I’m part of my workplace’s campus recruiting program. Basically, I go out and make students aware of the job opportunities that are available at my workplace, and I’m paid $10 for each resume I collect and $250 for each person hired from those resumes. Yesterday I started thinking about the whole deal in affiliate marketing terms: Aren’t those two actions just like leads and sales? Once I made that connection, I started thinking about ways I could use various marketing techniques that I’ve learned to increase my monthly payouts.

Up until now, I’ve been getting my leads and sales from word of mouth, craigslist, and un-targeted Facebook marketplace listings. Ah yes, Facebook. Ever had one of those moments where a lightbulb turns on in your head? I decided to try using Facebook’s advertising system to my advantage.

It turns out Facebook’s targeting methods are exactly what I needed. Look at it this way:

With a Facebook Marketplace listing, I’m targeting everybody with no filters. Crapshoot.

That cuts it down to approximately 560 (presumably qualified) people. I set my max CPC to $0.50 and waited. So far, I’ve gotten three clicks and three submitted resumes. For those of you who aren’t very good at math, that means I spent $1.50 and got $30 back, resulting in a $28.50 profit. That number has the potential to be much higher, if any of those people are hired. Not a bad deal, in my opinion.